


Summer Cramp

by catisacat



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, it's only rhys/vaughn if u squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 01:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10979139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catisacat/pseuds/catisacat
Summary: Vaughn's parents have always found his lack of friends to be a bad thing.Him? Not so much.They hope sending him to a summer camp will fix that, no matter how much he doesn't want to go.





	Summer Cramp

**Author's Note:**

> Part of one of my first official entries to the Borderlands Summer Bingo. I have no chill so in the first 24 hours I've finished this and a picture, covering five different prompts.
> 
> Gotta wait until people are actually awake to post them to tumblr tho.
> 
> For this one it's the prompts: Summer Camp, Flashlight Tag, Thunderstorms.

Vaughn had spent most of his childhood alone.

In most ways, he’d gotten used to it. Adapted.

A bigger issue, however, was how much his parents kept pushing him to make friends. Every day after school they’d badger him, asking him if he’d made any new friends.

Every day they received the same answer. No, I didn’t.

For twelve years he largely ignored it. Well, probably less years than that but that was the easiest, cleanest way I could tell you he’s twelve. Cut me some slack here.

However, this issue was glaring him in the eye right now, unpleasantly bright.

Summer camp. Two words right out of his nightmares.

Vaughn supposed his parents meant well, even as they shoved him reluctantly onto the bus full of rowdy kids. They’d even tried to accommodate his interests. Sort of. The camp was one for “tech geeks” as the highly condescending brochure had stated.

However, the bus was still full of the same kids Vaughn’d encountered all the time. Loud, obnoxious, and uninterested in him. If he had to wager a guess, most of them were being sent to this particular camp in hopes they’d come out the other side a little smarter. Or the other camps were full. Possibly both.

Either way he awkwardly made his way down the aisle, looking for an empty seat.

Packed to the brim, there was exactly one seat left open.

The scrawny kid sitting in it, swinging his legs, looked remarkably better dressed than anyone else on the bus. Frankly, he had no business going to summer camp in what looked like his Sunday clothes.

Surprisingly, his strangely formal attire drew attention away from a much more unusual fact about him. Instead of a flesh and bone arm, his entire right arm was replaced by a blue-and-yellow robotic one.

“Is this… is this seat taken?” Vaughn asked the odd boy, very quietly.

It wasn’t.

The second he’d sat down, it was like he’d flipped a switch in the weirdly dressed kid.

For the rest of the entire bus ride, the kid had talked Vaughn’s ear off.

My name’s Rhys. I’m eleven. I have two sisters and a mom and a dad but mom and dad are never home. I want to be a CEO of a big company when I’m older. And after the run down of his entire life, Rhys had started asking Vaughn about his.

Vaughn uncomfortably obliged, although there wasn’t much to tell. Just him and his parents. They’re around a little too much and are always pushing at him. He didn’t know what he wanted to be when he grew up. Frankly, he already felt inadequate to this weirdo who seemed to have his entire life planned out.

Rhys didn’t seem to notice or possibly just didn’t care. He continued to prattle on and on, pausing only when he expected Vaughn to reply.

In some ways, Vaughn supposed this was flattering. He’d never had someone pay even remotely close to this level of attention to him in his entire life. Well, except his parents but that’s kind of their job.

After the hour long bus ride was over Vaughn knew more about Rhys than was probably entirely necessary.

And it seemed like this was only the beginning.

Upon arrival at the actual camp the overly perky camp counselor asked if there were any pairs that wanted to room together.

Vaughn’s face had gone bright red as Rhys grabbed his new friend’s hand and held it up for him, loudly announcing they were going to be bunkmates. Considering the weird stares the other kids were giving them, Vaughn was getting a pretty clear image of why this kid was sitting alone.

Luckily for Rhys, Vaughn wasn’t terribly concerned with the fact the rest of the kids seemed to think his new friend was totally embarrassing.

However, Vaughn distinctly didn’t like the obnoxious shitty camp games he was forced into.

Thankfully, today’s events weren’t terribly long. Before long the sun started falling and they were sent to their cabins.

Vaughn found the one thing he liked about this particular camp were that the cabins were two people only. Last thing he wanted was to be stuck in a large room full of screaming boys. He was fine with it just being one boy, talking enough for multiple.

Lying on his back, he contemplated how he could get out the rest of the camp games.

He was brought out of his thoughts by Rhys suddenly addressing him, once he finished neatly unpacking his bag, “Hey, wanna go play in the forest? We’re backed up right to it.”

“No, not really,” Vaughn replied.

He jumped as Rhys appeared in his field of vision, leaning over him and shaking his arm, “C’mon, we got the cabin you can’t see from the counselor bunk. We basically have to!”

Vaughn only looked forlornly up at his new friend, weighing the pros and cons of just rolling over and going to sleep.

“Just this once?” Rhys begged, continuing to jostle his friend.

Sighing, Vaughn pushed himself up, “Fine but… bring the flashlights, I don’t want to get lost or anything.”

Nodding, Rhys flounced off to get them.

As they started walking into the woods this very clearly felt like a mistake.

Rhys was fucking around with his flashlight, blinking it on and off in apparent immediate boredom with his surroundings. After a few seconds they were deep enough into the woods to no longer see their cabin.

“Alright, we were out here. Can we go back now?” Vaughn asked, before being hit with a bright beam of light right to the eyes.

He swore quietly under his breath as Rhys flickered the light at him, “Let’s play flashlight tag!”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s tag but instead of poking each other you use the beam of light.”

To demonstrate, he shone his flashlight on Vaughn’s shoulder.

“That’s dumb, I can’t run faster than the speed of light.”

“No, like… hide first, hide.”

Vaughn wasn’t entirely sure why he was still going along with this but he obliged. Running to go and hide while his odd new friend counted.

As he started running there was a sudden crack of thunder.

He lurched forwards in a panic, tripping over himself and rolling down a painfully stick covered hill. Hissing in pain he sat up, feeling his back covered entirely in tiny scratches. Looking around he no longer knew which side of the hill he’d come tumbling down.

Thunder again, closer, as raindrops began to fall.

Climbing to the top of the bank, Vaughn looked around. Neither side looked terribly inviting and both had no clue if that was the direction he’d come from.

He was completely and utterly lost and alone.

Mind racing he went over what he should do if he got lost. What his parents had said.

The words “stay put” rung in his mind.

Letting himself slid back down to the bottom of the ditch he curled up a bit, considering his other options. Frankly, none of them sounded great. There was a possibility he wasn’t far from the camp and he just couldn’t see it for the trees.

And Rhys knew he was out here and roughly where he’d run off too. He knew the other boy was odd but he certainly didn’t seem like the type to leave Vaughn for dead in the woods.

Stay put. He was going to stay put.

The rain started falling harder.

After a few minutes, Vaughn was wondering if staying put was any better with the storm brewing overhead. Shivering he started curling into a tighter ball.

What if he was wrong and Rhys would keep his mouth shut not to get in trouble? He knew only what the kid had told him, hell, he could be a pathological liar for all Vaughn knew. Hell, he could have specifically lured him out here with the intent to get him lost.

What if he died out here?

A strangled sob escaped him as he hugged his own legs to his chest.

But before he could really lose it he heard cracking noises and a voice yelling his name.

It grew louder and louder, clearly the voice of Rhys. Trying to scramble out of the now muddy and slippery ditch he stood up and yelled back, “RHYS?”

Cracking grew louder and more determined as Rhys scrambled out of the treeline and found himself tumbling down the exact same bank with a high pitched scream. Landing face first into the mud next to Vaughn before pushing himself up with a gasp. He looked utterly dismayed that his fancy clothes were covered in muck before realizing he’d managed to find Vaughn again.

He yelped as he was suddenly pulled into a tight hug, metal arm digging into his back painfully, “I found you!”

Stuttering and obviously on the brink of tears still, Vaughn replied dumbly, “What?”

Pushing himself back, Rhys’s eyes were glistening in the dark, “It’s not like I was gonna leave my new bro for dead right?”

\---

The rest of the summer camp passed peacefully. Rhys didn’t bother him to do anything outside his comfort zone like that again. Even helped him try to calm down once they were finally safe in their cabin.

Despite how much getting lost in the rain had upset him, Vaughn found himself… glad he’d done it.

He’d never really understood his parents constantly pressuring him to make friends. Even now he still didn’t get why they thought constantly bugging him about it was a good idea. But he did understand one thing: he really liked having a friend. A best friend.

As expected the first thing they asked him was if he’d made any new friends.

For once the answer wasn’t “no.”

“Yeah, his name is Rhys. He’s my best friend.”


End file.
